More Ancients

It seems I am unable to shake off my current Ancients Bug - the era continues to fascinate me, as does developing my set of rules for the period. The SYW and WW2 continue to be very much on the back burner.

I recently had the great good fortune to meet and game with Roy Boss, current president of the Society of Ancients. What better contact to make for a budding ancient gamer and rules writer? He lives quite close to me in Cirencester.

Roy in his wargames lair. 

To say Roy's collection of wargames figures is extensive would be rather an understatement - he is a great enthusiast and has 50 years of collecting behind him. When we decided to have a try-out of my rules with some of Roy's ancients collection, he kindly chose to honour the old school pretensions of the rules with some old school figures. Half an hour or so of delving produced Roman and Celtic armies in 20mm metal, with many of the figures going back to the 60s and 70s. Needless to say, our test game produced much useful discussion and ideas for rule improvements. 

The rules are designed to cope easily with armies based any which way, and Roy's figures were based very differently from my own. Happily, all went well and I was reassured that basing is not something to worry about. A few more photos are included below. 

A hugely enjoyable and profitable few hours. Thank you Roy.

My Roman cavalry melee with their Celtic opponents,
whilst the legionaries to their right are assaulted by a warband.

Oops! How did that happen? Roy is a much better general than I, even with someone else's rules.
A much depleted unit of legionaries becomes the meat in a Celtic sandwich.

Hmm... this is becoming a habit. A unit of Roman allied cavalry is surrounded.

Overview. I was losing badly when we called it a day. But I had learned a lot.

I will be visiting again to have a go at Armati, Roy's favourite ancients set. Playing other rules will add to my knowledge of alternatives and possibilities. And I have a game of To The Strongest coming up as well, with my longtime wargames buddy and friend Steve J. No sign of the obsession waning just for the moment.

'Til next time.

Santa And The Egyptian Chariots

I don't normally ask Santa for wargames stuff at Christmas, as doing so feels a little cold-blooded. I prefer my presents to be a little more spontaneous (and perhaps a little less warlike during the Season Of Goodwill). But this year I wanted to push on my ancient armies a bit further, and so requested some HCH Figures painted Egyptian war chariots. 

And so, much to my pleased surprise, four of them duly turned up. About a week of occasional construction found them based and ready to go. These guys are £20 each, fully painted but needing some putting together. As with all the HCH painted products I have purchased so far, I was more than happy with the completed models. 

These are, like the war elephants from the same company, wonderfully weighty models with a fine heft to them. The chariots themselves are not perhaps as colourful as some models you see photos of, but this does not bother me. The bright horses and crew create a fine impression.

These guys join my three Assyrian heavy chariots to form the chariot corps of my imaginary Paphlagonian army. The heavies now rejoice under the name of the 'Guard Chariots', whilst the lights are to be known as the 'Sinope Chariots'. 

A couple of units of Victrix legionaries and maybe a unit of Persian Immortals will just about finish off the armies I want. I don't want the project to get out of hand, and my WW2 and SYW gaming are beginning to feel neglected.

Ah, the satisfactions of a successfully proceeding project!